Fewer antibiotics are being prescribed by doctors in England for the first time, data from Public Health England (PHE) shows. 

The figures reveal that antibiotic prescribing in both hospitals and the community decreased by 4.3 per cent from 40.7 million to 38.5 million between 2014 and 2015, marking the first ever decline in antibiotic prescriptions across the whole healthcare system. 

However, the report also showed that rates of antibiotic resistant infections have continued to rise, stressing the need to avoid complacency.

Professor Dame Sally Davies, chief medical officer, said: “Antimicrobial resistance is the biggest threat to global health – it could halt the progress of over a century of modern medicine. Before antibiotics and vaccines, around 40 per cent of all deaths were due to infections, now it is just seven per cent. We do not want to see this reversed so we must do all we can to fight drug resistant infections.”